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Saturday, October 29, 2016

Some sips of vintage Vine - our top ten posts

We have been thrown for a loop here at Harpin Manor. After what seemed like just six seconds of fame, Vine is to be no more by all accounts.

It took us a while to hop on this social media bandwagon (once we accepted that nobody seemed to mind if videos were recorded off the telly!) but eventually we did with our first offering on April 5, 2015 as we tried to work out if Francois Louw had a swipe at Ian Madigan’s head during this controversial Champions Cup quarterfinal at the Aviva Stadium.

From then the account became part of the Harpin On Rugby network to go with this site, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube and Instagram. Before this season kicked off we closed down the Google+ page...now it seems like a good time to do likewise to our Vine one, even if it makes a comeback.

So to provide some proper closure we thought we’d share with you the posts which followers found to be the most “loopy” from our 95 total offerings...some of our favourites didn’t quite make the cut like this one featuring a couple of disinterested Ulster fans but we’ll just embed a “top ten”...enjoy!

10. What Mamuka Gorgodze wants, he gets, end of.

This isn’t really the 10th most popular Vine but The Georgian Giant told me to include it anyway so I did! In a World Cup fixture against Tonga, The Lelos were winning in the latter stages and their outhalf looked set to go crossfield with a penalty...he might have been bluffing but his skipper wasn’t taking any chances.

9. The best drop-kick Thomond Park has ever seen?

You can be sure I was primed and ready to get some good-natured digs at Munster fans as Ian Madigan landed this unlikely drop goal conversion for Ireland against the Barbarians. We were still on the losing side but it made for an interesting finish.

8. Iain Henderson’s never-ending tackle

Remember when Ireland beat France in the World Cup and believed we could go on and win the whole thing? O, how it was a simpler time. Still, three moments from that match make our top ten and are definitely worth recalling, the first being this tackle from the mighty Ulsterman which knocked Bernard Le Roux and some of his team-mates into the middle of la semaine prochaine.

7. A solo from Nadolo

Leinster fans now know full well how Nemani Nadolo can hurt you in several different way - back in Super Rugby 2015 he was giving us due warning for the Crusaders before his move to Montpellier.

6. YESSSSSSSSSSS!

Not all “Vine-able” moments happen on the pitch; often they are reactions from fans and coaches and this rare sight of Joe Schmidt letting his excitement show proved to be well worth a share. It;s the second top ten entry taken from that match against France in Cardiff and happened right after Rob Kearney went over for a try.

5. No army can stop the Tank

The final offering from that win over France was this super-human effort from Sean O’Brien and shows just how much Ireland will need him in November. Here’s he is in full beast mode and two Frenchmen can’t stop him halting their progress.

4. The next Paul O’Connell?

Last June the “Wolfpuppies”, aka the Irish Under 20s, went from 17-0 down against Wales in their first match to reaching the final, beating the Baby Blacks along the way. And the fightback began with this inspirational hit from skipper James Ryan. He has a long, long, long way to go to being the next Paulie as some are suggesting but he clearly has it in him.

3. Go Go Gorumaru!

Everyone remembers Japan’s famous victory over the Springboks in the World Cup but what about this stupendous try-saving tackle by their full-back Gorumaru against Scotland?

2. Whatevs, Pascal!

Neither Jamie nor Greig have a clue what the ref is on about yet are unanimous in ttheir desire to just get on with it...In my haste to get the clip on Vine I mistakenly identified the ref as Jerôme Garces - instead it was Pascal Gaüzère, but the followers got the idea!

1. Par(isse) Excellence

One thing we learned during our relatively brief spell on Vine was that the key to getting lots of loops is timing. When Sergio Parisse did this incredibly cheeky offload in the Top 14 playoffs for Stade Francais on their 2015 march to the title, we were first to post a clip of it and it got picked up on Twitter & Facebook and shared far and wide.

For a few days you could actually see the counter speeding along at rate of knots. We know many bigger websites are used to cracking 100k loops on a daily basis, but for our humble independent selves we enjoyed watching this one do well.

OK that’s it - we had fun putting this together. Many thanks to all who shared our Vines. We won’t be deleting the account altogether, we just won’t be adding new content. That’s not to say we won’t be adding videos on our other channels, mind you! Stay tuned. JLP